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Stories of witchcraft and demonic possession from early modern England through the last official trials in colonial New England. Those possessed by the devil in early modern England usually exhibited a common set of symptoms: fits vomiting visions contortions speaking in tongues and an antipathy to prayer. However it was a matter of interpretation and sometimes public opinion if these symptoms were visited upon the victim or if they came from within. Both early modern England and colonial New England had cases that blurred the line between witchcraft and demonic possession most famously the Salem witch trials. While historians acknowledge some similarities in witch trials between the two regions such as the fact that an overwhelming majority of witches were women the histories of these cases primarily focus on local contexts and specifics. In so doing they overlook the ways in which manhood factored into possession and witchcraft cases. Vexed with Devils is a cultural history of witchcraft-possession phenomena that centers on the role of men and patriarchal power. Erika Gasser reveals that witchcraft trials had as much to do with who had power in the community to impose judgement or to subvert order as they did with religious belief. She argues that the gendered dynamics of possession and witchcraft demonstrated that contested meanings of manhood played a critical role in the struggle to maintain authority. While all men were not capable of accessing power in the same ways many of the people involved-those who acted as if they were possessed men accused of being witches and men who wrote possession propaganda-invoked manhood as they struggled to advocate for themselves during these perilous times. Gasser ultimately concludes that the decline of possession and witchcraft cases was not merely a product of change over time but rather an indication of the ways in which patriarchal power endured throughout and bey...

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Product summary

Stories of witchcraft and demonic possession from early modern England through the last official trials in colonial New England. Those possessed by the devil in early modern England usually exhibited a common set of symptoms: fits vomiting visions contortions speaking in tongues and an antipathy to prayer. However it was a matter of interpretation and sometimes public opinion if these symptoms were visited upon the victim or if they came from within. Both early modern England and colonial New England had cases that blurred the line between witchcraft and demonic possession most famously the Salem witch trials. While historians acknowledge some similarities in witch trials between the two regions such as the fact that an overwhelming majority of witches were women the histories of these cases primarily focus on local contexts and specifics. In so doing they overlook the ways in which manhood factored into possession and witchcraft cases. Vexed with Devils is a cultural history of witchcraft-possession phenomena that centers on the role of men and patriarchal power. Erika Gasser reveals that witchcraft trials had as much to do with who had power in the community to impose judgement or to subvert order as they did with religious belief. She argues that the gendered dynamics of possession and witchcraft demonstrated that contested meanings of manhood played a critical role in the struggle to maintain authority. While all men were not capable of accessing power in the same ways many of the people involved-those who acted as if they were possessed men accused of being witches and men who wrote possession propaganda-invoked manhood as they struggled to advocate for themselves during these perilous times. Gasser ultimately concludes that the decline of possession and witchcraft cases was not merely a product of change over time but rather an indication of the ways in which patriarchal power endured throughout and bey...

Returns policy

We want you to be entirely happy with your order from start to finish but, if for any reason you change your mind about your order or if your order arrives faulty, please click here to view our full Delivery and Returns policy including information regarding postcode restrictions.

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